I spent the afternoon at Swansea Print Workshop, inking and pressing a little lino block I’d cut earlier this week. The subject is Arthur, the Mangalitza boar from Pontyates. I forgot to take my digital camera so tried using the camera on my phone. It’s rubbish and really complicated to get the image onto my computer, involving something called Blueray, Husb’s smartphone and emails. I won’t bother again. Anyway, here’s a blurry picture of the magnificent Colombian Press, dating from 1855, with the inked block ready to go.

I’m just in the proofing phase at the moment, tryng out different papers, inks and pressures on the Colombian. This one is printed using Intaglio Printmakers Velvet Black litho ink (oil-based) onto a very white, lightweight Japanese hand-made paper.

Like this:

Here are the last of my scribblings of pigs down on the farm in Pontyates. Some more drawings of Arthur and Mango, two of the Mangalitza pigs; Mangalica in it’s native Hungarian, one of three breeds of curly-haired hog originally bred in Hungary.

There is a third Mangalitsa, a ginger sow called Lisa, but she was too shy to come and see us. They’ve only been in Britain for about six or seven years so I was lucky to be able to see some. Arthur and Mango were very engrossed in scoffing their hay and barley at first, but became a bit friendlier. They’re pretty large beasts and sometimes jump the fence and go for a wander.

Arthur got quite vocal too with a surprisingly loud, gruff voice. The Mangalitza’s legs are much bigger and stockier than those of the dainty little Berkshire piggies that also live on the farm. Nice for juicy ham! As well as doing some drypoint etchings from these scribbles, I’m also tempted to do some tiny linocuts.

Husb and I spent a happy few hours with Illtud and Liesel at their farm in Pontyates and I took the opportunity of sketching their pigs. Illtud also writes an excellent blog about being an artisan charcutier, but vegetarians might find it a bit much.

I started off by sketching some of the little pedigree Berkshire piggahs during feeding time. They’re about 4 months old and they were not at all interested in the furless monkeys gawping at them and kept their noses firmly in their trough.

It was weird drawing an animal I’m not used to. Mostly I draw people and cats and it took a while to get used to a new physiology. I tried scribbling with a Pentel V5 pen and also with black and white conte crayon.

They’re short-haired piggahs, mostly black with darling little white socks and white splashes on their faces. They are remarkably dainty and walk around almost on tiptoe, like teeny piggah ballerinas. Some of these might be reworked as drypoint etchings in the near future.

Just some faces scribbled when I’ve been out and about the place. The older man was scribbled this morning as I was having a nice cuppa with my friend in Waterstone’s bookshop cafe while we were waiting for Illtyd the Charcutier from Pontyates to deliver our sausages and faggots. mmmmmmmmm

Today I fancied doing some tehnical exercises in my sketchbook, just for a few minutes, so I squinted my eyes and drew the outline shapes thrown by my little cat Sparta. It’s not that easy because the second you start to draw a cat, they fidget. Even when they’re asleep! It didn’t take long to scribble these and it helps to analyse positive and negative shapes and to improve accuracy. They’re not pretending to be great art, but in my opinion artists, like all other professionals, need to practice regularly.

Earlier I cooked up some traditional Welsh laverbread to go with locally cured sausage and bacon from Pontiets for our tea. I scraped the glutinous laver into the pan and put its plastic pot on the table. When I turned back, Sparta was on the table [naughty girl], licking the remains of the laver with relish. In my experience, cats are quite conservative eaters, generally preferring only food that can be caught and killed so I was really surprised to see her tucking into laverbread. Must be celebrating her Welsh heritage :).